DayZ to become stand alone game

Popular Arma II mod DayZ is to become a stand alone game.

DayZ, the hugely popular zombie modification to Arma II: Combined Operation, will become a stand-alone game, it has been revealed on Twitter.

The game's official development feed tweeted yesterday saying: "That's right, this is actually happening - DayZ will be developed as a stand-alone game, with me as project lead".

This was confirmed on the DayZ site with a post by Dean "Rocket" Hall, announcing that Bohemia Interactive will work on creating DayZ as a full game.

"Development and updates of the mod will continue in parallel with the development of the game, so anyone who is playing the mod now will be able to continue to do so. The project will follow the Minecraft development model; fast iterations with the community alpha available for a heavily discounted price," he said.

In an interview with MP1ST, Mr Hall revealed that he hoped to have something out by September.

The news may come as no surprise to many people, given its popularity in the last few months. Earlier this week it was revealed that there has been more than one million unique DayZ players in four months, with the last 100,000 coming in just four days.

All the gamers combined have played for 1,244 years, walked 1,398,879,267km and killed 2,147,483,647 zombies. Considering many people doubted the potential of the mod earlier this year, this is a resounding success and great landmark for Mr Hall and his team.

The game has earned huge plaudicts from fans and critics alike, with PC Gamer calling it one of the most important things to happen to computer gaming in 2012.

Its emphasis is on authenticity, with the environment having a variety of impacts on the player and issues such as bone fractures, low blood pressure, shock and hunger coming to the fore during play.

At the start it places players in the fictional post-Soviet state of Chernarus where a virus has turned its population into flesh hungry zombies. Gamers have to then search the world for supplies and survive the hordes by teaming up with other players.